Sunday, December 18, 2005

Dems Need to Dish

Caution: Pro-Democratic, pro-democratic rant follows.

A week before Christmas and we know who's naughty (dirty, dishonest). It's George the Lesser and his gang of fellow travelers in the executive and legislative branches. Let's hear it now, through the next presidential election cycle.

At least from Ronald Reagan's time, Republicans in power have a sodden record of the un-nice, undemocratic and unAmerican. There should not be a day or hour that the Democrats miss listing the disgraces.

Conservatives have played on the optimism, on the emotions, and on the fantasies of the voters. What we have to show for it includes:

A pit of national debt and economic stagnation

Successive generations anticipating lower living standards than their parents and grandparents

A bloated government infrastructure that spends on programs that do not benefit the needy

Fewer freedoms than any time in memory, even when Tricky Dick Nixon plied his dirty deeds

The bitter irony is that because of the long-time emotional tricks of these rampaging elephants, far too many Americans for far too long have believed the lies and supported the conservatives. They have been promised the opposite of what they got.

George the Lesser aside — and we can only anticipate when he will be cast aside — Dems need to said it loud. Ronald Reagan's presidency was a disaster. His Regonomics is a deceit that Georgie has revisited with the same desperate and destructive results.

Say it from the Senate. Say it from the campaign.

You cannot have guns and butter.

Borrow-and-spend economics destroys our economy.

Borrow-and-spend economics steal from the Boomers, Gen-X, Gen-Y and beyond.

Pushing narrow religious standards into law is unAmerican, hell, against the pilgrims and pioneers who founded this nation.

Cherry picking rights for certain citizens in undemocratic and unAmerican.

Spying on citizens' books, mail, calls, and contact is unAmerican.

Claiming that the increasingly unsafe nation you shape can only be kept safe by stripping rights is unAmerican.

Even Randist Alan Greenspan has finally admitted that our Republican-driven trade deficits, deficit spending and crushing national debt mean disaster — for both the United States and the world economies.

Republicans and their conservative minions have become the horde of anti-Americans.

We Boomers grew up recognizing that the WWI and WWII generations put themselves totally on the line to provide secure, free democracy. (They also paid their bills.) The legislative and executive efforts in Washington and many states since Reagan's time have tried their damnedest to reverse the accomplishments of those heroic millions.

The Democratic officials and candidates have to call it as it is.

It was a lot of years ago (1928) when Al Smith was the Democratic Presidential candidate. He said, "The American people never carry an umbrella. They prepare to walk in the eternal sunshine."

The conservatives have played on that for decades now. Deficit spending, unwinnable imperial wars, tax gifts to the wealthy (who do not use the money to stimulate the larger economy), and limiting the rights of women, gays and minorities are the legacies.